Newt followed the doubtable Miss Goldstein through MACUSA’s headquarters, on the way to the Wand Registry Office. He mostly tuned out the woman’s faintly anxious chatter, instead taking in the impressive architecture and décor. It wasn’t impressive in the positive sense, for – while the American taste for open plan spaces and warm colours made it seem like a far more welcoming space than the British Ministry – the obsession with gold plating only served as an ostentatious reminder that, metaphorically speaking, the Americans were the equivalent of the Bourgeoisie. It was the excess of the newly and arrogantly unconfident rich, desperate to show off just how impressive they thought they were, whereas the British Ministry’s sturdy black marble and understated elegance politely revealed the confidence of old money – those who’d had it long enough to endure as waves of the new rich rose and fell in self-indulgence and arrogance.
However, for all that he was critical of the garishly warm design (and the fact that the Americans somehow thought hiding their ministry within a skyscraper, which could be hit with untold disasters or due for demolition by the muggle government without the wizarding world learning about it until it was too late, whereas the British Ministry was sensibly hidden underground) he did not say anything about it to his guide. Until, that is, he came upon the giant threat warning monitor hanging from the ceiling. Newt paused, staring up at it in bemusement.
After a few moments, Miss Goldstein realised she was talking to thin air and doubled back to where Newt was standing. She looked at him, looked up at the warning clock, and looked back at him. “Do you not have one of those in the British Ministry, Mister Scamander?” she asked.
Newt shook his head without bothering to correct her assumption that he worked for the ministry. “If we did,” he said, “the former Gryffindors and Slytherins would take it as a challenge, the former Ravenclaws would keep trying to stop them by being creative with new laws and departmental memos, and we former Hufflepuffs would have to clean up everyone else’s mess and be called duffers for our trouble.”
Goldstein blinked at him.
“School houses,” Newt clarified, ducking his head in embarrassment.
The American witch nodded and laughed. She started saying something about Pukwudgies which Newt lost interest in the moment he realised she meant them as a symbol rather than as a species, but allowed her to feel like he cared as he followed her.
They were only a corridor or so away from her office, as Newt would later realise, when Goldstein finally asked him something he couldn’t answer automatically.
“Pardon?” Newt replied, trying not to choke or be obvious about his failure to pay attention.
Miss Goldstein shrugged awkwardly. “I asked if there was any truth to the reputation of the, uh, Lestranges. It just struck me as odd that you said Hufflepuffs were kind of the harmless ones and that Sly-there-in… uh; them had such a dark reputation?”
Newt smiled slightly and glanced at the floor. “My mother used to say, quite proudly, that none of the houses’ main traits were themselves negative, but that they each had a dark side.”
Goldstein made a curious noise as she began walking again.
After a moment, Newt continued more awkwardly, having abruptly realised that she was waiting for him to say more. “My mother would say that Slytherin’s ambition is more often focused on the arts or social progress, but its dark side – which the Gryffindors treat as its only side – is obsession. The dark side of Gryffindor bravery is recklessness. The dark side of Ravenclaw intelligence is arrogance …and the dark side of Hufflepuff loyalty is loyalty. She used to say that made us ‘puffs incorruptible.”
The witch laughed warmly.
Newt diplomatically did not add that he was fairly sure his mother was several sandwiches short of a picnic. Oh, the dark side of loyalty was certainly loyalty, but that didn’t mean it had no dark side. More murder, torture, and cruelty had been committed by those loyal to a person or cause than out of recklessness, ambition, and the desire for knowledge combined. Newt himself was fiercely loyal, especially to his Lady. He was actually rather comfortable with this Goldstein witch – something he almost never was with humans he did not know – but if it benefitted his Lady to see her dead, or worse, he would not hesitate to do it. Loyalty was its own dark mirror.
They passed through a door and into what appeared to be the office of the Wand Registry.
“And, uh, your friend Lestrange?” she asked. Then she winced and titled her head to the side. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. It’s just – I used to be an Auror and I was curious because even across the ocean that family is sort of known for being, uh-”
If there was one thing in humans Newt could sympathise with, it was being awkward and digging oneself in deeper. “Anti-Muggle, dark, and hopping mad?” he suggested to put her out of her misery. “Leta only managed the last one.” Unbidden, a memory ghosted past his mind’s eye. Fire in the night-shrouded forest. A dark figure wreathed in flame. The gleam of vindictive glee in seventeen-year-old Leta’s dark eyes as one of their attackers died in agony before her. The spinning of the world as a death shrouded, weeping Lady, bent over his fallen body, with Leta visible still just over the weeping Lady’s gaunt and foggy shoulder. Eyes that where white where they ought to have been black and black where they ought to have been white. He sat awkwardly in the chair she offered to him, the only one not covered in papers, glad that looking down to the chair prevented her from seeing the emotions flickering over his face. “To this day I don’t know how a family like that managed to produce such an over-enthusiastic ball of sunshine and energy.” Twenty-one year old Leta giggling and snorting in laughter like a child. Then older: bouncing up and down at the thought of meeting baby unicorns. An eleven year old dancing on the table during the Hallowe’en feast out of stubborn ambition to be known on her own merits rather than as an extension of her family. The shock on her face as Newt pushed her out of the way of the beast rushing at them. His weeping Lady standing by his fallen body and watching Leta’s passionate vengeance with utter apathy.
Newt shook his head to send the memories away. The description had been more open and fond than he would usually have given. Possibly because the room reminded him of the cramped spaces they used to hide from their schoolmates in, possibly because he was exhausted and missed his friend, and possibly because, in the back of his head, his inner voice was muttering Was she flirting with me? Please don’t be flirting with me. I don’t know how to handle human flirting.
His unspoken plea seemed to be answered, as Miss Goldstein smiled slightly less broadly and began to search through her piles of papers for his lost documentation.
He couldn’t help but read some of the papers, surreptitiously, as the witch bustled around trying to find everything. He wondered if the Americans had figured out that they could improve their profiles of criminals with a bit of applied wandlore. The wild snake stepping out from behind a tree and cursing the last smuggler in the back. “My wand is Cedar you cunt.” He wasn’t going to inform the law enforcement of how much they could improve their understanding of likely behaviour and counter for magical strengths by mentioning it, though.
Newt jerked in surprise when Miss Goldstein proudly dropped a folder of papers onto the desk with a thud. Apparently he’d been lost in thought. Apathetic eyes in a too gaunt face in the centre of the ring. The pale figure of the weeping Lady chained in place, with a black cloud in a bubble above her.
Goldstein hadn’t noticed his distracted state. Nor, thankfully, his case rattling as the menagerie lodged yet another complaint about their late lunches.
“Phoenix feather, eleven inches. Huh, Silver lime? I haven’t seen that before,” she muttered.
Newt smiled and ducked his head awkwardly. “You wouldn’t have. It’s very rare.” ”Do you have any idea how rare those are? That’s a phoenix egg! Newt, we have to do something!” Sea serpent. Phoenix egg. Lethifold. Unicorn. The chained, weeping Lady. Apathetic eyes and Leta’s mad grin. A rain of petrol. Fiendfyre loosed within regular flames. Screams and cooking meat and desperate clawing against the ice wall around them. Dizzy, desperate relief that the awful crunch when he hit the ground after the unicorn’s charge had been his ribs and not his wand. Meeting for the first time in Ollivander’s. Silver lime and Cedar brothers, a pair that could do anything together. Except that they couldn’t. “You’re hurt,” he’d murmured when the Lady shrouded in oily death had leaned over him. Her silvery tears on his broken chest. His concern for her had spared his life.
“All done!” Miss Goldstein said brightly, offering him a piece of official looking paper. Then she caught sight of the ashen pallor of Newt’s face. “You alright, Mister Scamander?”
Newt’s mouth twitched in an attempt to smile. “Fine,” he said with a little shake of his head. “Just worn out from travel. I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to check into my hotel room yet and need to get around to reapplying the featherweight charms to my luggage – had to take them off for muggle customs.”
Miss Goldstein looked confused for a moment. Then she said, “They’re called No-Majes here, Mister Scamander.”
Newt nodded. “Right.” He stumbled to his feet. “Thank you, Miss Goldstein. Uh, if I need to exchange some galleons for local currency…”
“Third floor,” Goldstein said with a surprisingly pleasant too look at smile.
Newt nodded again and shakily left the department’s office-enclave. There was an unsettling presence in the headquarters of MACUSA. It had been stronger in that room. He hadn’t had flashbacks like that for a long time. He walked slowly up to the lift, wondering why something with such a pungent presence was wandering around the government building.
Fill: Spice and Smoke (4/?), violence, background death, ment. torture
Newt followed the doubtable Miss Goldstein through MACUSA’s headquarters, on the way to the Wand Registry Office. He mostly tuned out the woman’s faintly anxious chatter, instead taking in the impressive architecture and décor. It wasn’t impressive in the positive sense, for – while the American taste for open plan spaces and warm colours made it seem like a far more welcoming space than the British Ministry – the obsession with gold plating only served as an ostentatious reminder that, metaphorically speaking, the Americans were the equivalent of the Bourgeoisie. It was the excess of the newly and arrogantly unconfident rich, desperate to show off just how impressive they thought they were, whereas the British Ministry’s sturdy black marble and understated elegance politely revealed the confidence of old money – those who’d had it long enough to endure as waves of the new rich rose and fell in self-indulgence and arrogance.
However, for all that he was critical of the garishly warm design (and the fact that the Americans somehow thought hiding their ministry within a skyscraper, which could be hit with untold disasters or due for demolition by the muggle government without the wizarding world learning about it until it was too late, whereas the British Ministry was sensibly hidden underground) he did not say anything about it to his guide. Until, that is, he came upon the giant threat warning monitor hanging from the ceiling. Newt paused, staring up at it in bemusement.
After a few moments, Miss Goldstein realised she was talking to thin air and doubled back to where Newt was standing. She looked at him, looked up at the warning clock, and looked back at him. “Do you not have one of those in the British Ministry, Mister Scamander?” she asked.
Newt shook his head without bothering to correct her assumption that he worked for the ministry. “If we did,” he said, “the former Gryffindors and Slytherins would take it as a challenge, the former Ravenclaws would keep trying to stop them by being creative with new laws and departmental memos, and we former Hufflepuffs would have to clean up everyone else’s mess and be called duffers for our trouble.”
Goldstein blinked at him.
“School houses,” Newt clarified, ducking his head in embarrassment.
The American witch nodded and laughed. She started saying something about Pukwudgies which Newt lost interest in the moment he realised she meant them as a symbol rather than as a species, but allowed her to feel like he cared as he followed her.
They were only a corridor or so away from her office, as Newt would later realise, when Goldstein finally asked him something he couldn’t answer automatically.
“Pardon?” Newt replied, trying not to choke or be obvious about his failure to pay attention.
Miss Goldstein shrugged awkwardly. “I asked if there was any truth to the reputation of the, uh, Lestranges. It just struck me as odd that you said Hufflepuffs were kind of the harmless ones and that Sly-there-in… uh; them had such a dark reputation?”
Newt smiled slightly and glanced at the floor. “My mother used to say, quite proudly, that none of the houses’ main traits were themselves negative, but that they each had a dark side.”
Goldstein made a curious noise as she began walking again.
After a moment, Newt continued more awkwardly, having abruptly realised that she was waiting for him to say more. “My mother would say that Slytherin’s ambition is more often focused on the arts or social progress, but its dark side – which the Gryffindors treat as its only side – is obsession. The dark side of Gryffindor bravery is recklessness. The dark side of Ravenclaw intelligence is arrogance …and the dark side of Hufflepuff loyalty is loyalty. She used to say that made us ‘puffs incorruptible.”
The witch laughed warmly.
Newt diplomatically did not add that he was fairly sure his mother was several sandwiches short of a picnic. Oh, the dark side of loyalty was certainly loyalty, but that didn’t mean it had no dark side. More murder, torture, and cruelty had been committed by those loyal to a person or cause than out of recklessness, ambition, and the desire for knowledge combined. Newt himself was fiercely loyal, especially to his Lady. He was actually rather comfortable with this Goldstein witch – something he almost never was with humans he did not know – but if it benefitted his Lady to see her dead, or worse, he would not hesitate to do it. Loyalty was its own dark mirror.
They passed through a door and into what appeared to be the office of the Wand Registry.
“And, uh, your friend Lestrange?” she asked. Then she winced and titled her head to the side. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. It’s just – I used to be an Auror and I was curious because even across the ocean that family is sort of known for being, uh-”
If there was one thing in humans Newt could sympathise with, it was being awkward and digging oneself in deeper. “Anti-Muggle, dark, and hopping mad?” he suggested to put her out of her misery. “Leta only managed the last one.” Unbidden, a memory ghosted past his mind’s eye. Fire in the night-shrouded forest. A dark figure wreathed in flame. The gleam of vindictive glee in seventeen-year-old Leta’s dark eyes as one of their attackers died in agony before her. The spinning of the world as a death shrouded, weeping Lady, bent over his fallen body, with Leta visible still just over the weeping Lady’s gaunt and foggy shoulder. Eyes that where white where they ought to have been black and black where they ought to have been white. He sat awkwardly in the chair she offered to him, the only one not covered in papers, glad that looking down to the chair prevented her from seeing the emotions flickering over his face. “To this day I don’t know how a family like that managed to produce such an over-enthusiastic ball of sunshine and energy.” Twenty-one year old Leta giggling and snorting in laughter like a child. Then older: bouncing up and down at the thought of meeting baby unicorns. An eleven year old dancing on the table during the Hallowe’en feast out of stubborn ambition to be known on her own merits rather than as an extension of her family. The shock on her face as Newt pushed her out of the way of the beast rushing at them. His weeping Lady standing by his fallen body and watching Leta’s passionate vengeance with utter apathy.
Newt shook his head to send the memories away. The description had been more open and fond than he would usually have given. Possibly because the room reminded him of the cramped spaces they used to hide from their schoolmates in, possibly because he was exhausted and missed his friend, and possibly because, in the back of his head, his inner voice was muttering Was she flirting with me? Please don’t be flirting with me. I don’t know how to handle human flirting.
His unspoken plea seemed to be answered, as Miss Goldstein smiled slightly less broadly and began to search through her piles of papers for his lost documentation.
He couldn’t help but read some of the papers, surreptitiously, as the witch bustled around trying to find everything. He wondered if the Americans had figured out that they could improve their profiles of criminals with a bit of applied wandlore. The wild snake stepping out from behind a tree and cursing the last smuggler in the back. “My wand is Cedar you cunt.” He wasn’t going to inform the law enforcement of how much they could improve their understanding of likely behaviour and counter for magical strengths by mentioning it, though.
Newt jerked in surprise when Miss Goldstein proudly dropped a folder of papers onto the desk with a thud. Apparently he’d been lost in thought. Apathetic eyes in a too gaunt face in the centre of the ring. The pale figure of the weeping Lady chained in place, with a black cloud in a bubble above her.
Goldstein hadn’t noticed his distracted state. Nor, thankfully, his case rattling as the menagerie lodged yet another complaint about their late lunches.
“Phoenix feather, eleven inches. Huh, Silver lime? I haven’t seen that before,” she muttered.
Newt smiled and ducked his head awkwardly. “You wouldn’t have. It’s very rare.” ”Do you have any idea how rare those are? That’s a phoenix egg! Newt, we have to do something!” Sea serpent. Phoenix egg. Lethifold. Unicorn. The chained, weeping Lady. Apathetic eyes and Leta’s mad grin. A rain of petrol. Fiendfyre loosed within regular flames. Screams and cooking meat and desperate clawing against the ice wall around them. Dizzy, desperate relief that the awful crunch when he hit the ground after the unicorn’s charge had been his ribs and not his wand. Meeting for the first time in Ollivander’s. Silver lime and Cedar brothers, a pair that could do anything together. Except that they couldn’t. “You’re hurt,” he’d murmured when the Lady shrouded in oily death had leaned over him. Her silvery tears on his broken chest. His concern for her had spared his life.
“All done!” Miss Goldstein said brightly, offering him a piece of official looking paper. Then she caught sight of the ashen pallor of Newt’s face. “You alright, Mister Scamander?”
Newt’s mouth twitched in an attempt to smile. “Fine,” he said with a little shake of his head. “Just worn out from travel. I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to check into my hotel room yet and need to get around to reapplying the featherweight charms to my luggage – had to take them off for muggle customs.”
Miss Goldstein looked confused for a moment. Then she said, “They’re called No-Majes here, Mister Scamander.”
Newt nodded. “Right.” He stumbled to his feet. “Thank you, Miss Goldstein. Uh, if I need to exchange some galleons for local currency…”
“Third floor,” Goldstein said with a surprisingly pleasant too look at smile.
Newt nodded again and shakily left the department’s office-enclave. There was an unsettling presence in the headquarters of MACUSA. It had been stronger in that room. He hadn’t had flashbacks like that for a long time. He walked slowly up to the lift, wondering why something with such a pungent presence was wandering around the government building.